Baltika beer and "Across The Universe"... I like the Baltika. I really do. I must ask Ms. Chang if she drank it when she was in St.-Petersburg last autumn. Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo drinks Belle Gueule in Montreal. I'd like to think she drank Corona in Mexique, but that's all based on the Corona bottle thing. Baltika...I should be drinking it with Miss Ginny at a cafe in Tallinn tonight, or with Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife in a hotel bar in Stockholm...or a Russian bar in Brooklyn.

I have no idea what beer Miss Ginny will be drinking at Lamu in Kenya.

I want to know what Schubert pieces I should listen to. I know that Lissy at emigree or the Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt or Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife know about Schubert. But I can't just ask. What if Schubert is now declasse? What if I seem to be a rube or a fool for wanting to know about Schubert?

Evan Rachel Wood... Yes. I think Heather at wantedwanted or Miss Ginny and I could find a use for Ms. Wood. Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife likes tall, slender, coltish, elegant blonde girls. I wonder if she likes Ms. Wood...

"Across The Universe"... Why is Evan Rachel Wood not naked in this? What exactly is the point of a film where she isn't naked?

A girl in the Birmingham night, pulling off ultra-low skinny-leg jeans and climbing into a boy's dorm bed with a joint... It should be me with her. It should be me with Laura-Ashlee.

A girl in a very short tailored khaki miniskirt and a very fitted 3/4-sleeve white blouse. Nothing worn under either. Ballet flats or cheap, thin rubber flip-flops. I do love that look. The cheap, thin rubber flip-flops--- always deliciously slutty. They look like a leggy wicked co-ed can just kick them off for spontaneous no-names-please sex with Mysterious Strangers. A girl barefoot in a tiny skirt or tiny shorts--- always a good Slutty Co-Ed look, a look that suggests that the girl is already halfway to being undressed. That's Miss Ginny's look in liminal seasons: barefoot on a dock or on a campus lawn for a party, zippered hoodie worn next to the skin, tiny white shorts, a drink and a cigarette in her hand.

Miss Ginny smoked Marlboro Lites in her early teens and Marlboro Lites in Mexique. We have to move her up to Parliaments and Gauloises. Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife needs a hookah...and Gitane Filtres...or Dunhill Blues. Cigarettes do make an excellent prop for a wicked slutty lovely co-ed. If Miss Lissy at emigree is going to be an activist girl on the Skinny Island or frequent Chelsea clubs, she'll need cigarettes, too. If nothing else, she can always corner potential lovers at human rights rallies by asking for a light.

Miss Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife sent me a Netflix note about another Joy Division documentary. I added it and moved it up to Nr. 1 on my queue. I trust her tastes in films and music. So I'll be watching "Joy Division" and "Joy Division: Under Review" next week. And "The Art of Travel".

And yet... I go through her LastFM tracklists and through Miss Ginny's "Listening To" lines at LJ--- and through WaterColorFire / Lissy at emigree's tracklists as well, looking for new music. I can't see Lissy's GoodReads booklists, and that is disheartening. But... I can look at Laura-Ashlee's LastFM tracklists and feel...depressed. And at WaterColorFire's, too. I know that my tracklists aren't of any value. No lovely girl is scanning them and finding anything worth making note of. No lovely girl like Laura-Ashlee is looking at my LastFM site and finding new things or thinking that I have any value... Nothing I listen to is a marker for value. The same is true at Netflix. No lovely wicked clever girl is going through my Netflix queue and thinking that I have good tastes or looking at my lists and wanting to know more about me. I don't have anything--- books, film, music ---to offer up to lovely clever wicked girls. My tracklists and film queues aren't as good as theirs--- I'll never know the things they do, any more than I'll have the Stories they have...or the value they have. No girl will ever think I have anything of value to offer her, and I'll never be as good as any of the girls whose lists I scan. I can look at Laura-Ashlee's lists--- or Lissy's, or Miss Ginny's ---and just feel...inferior. I want desperately to have notes left for me from bladeoftheknife, but I'm afraid to read them, or to read any of her LJ entries. I'm always and ever inferior to her. Nothing I do or have done or will ever do is as good as anything Laura-Ashlee at bladeoftheknife or Lissy at emigree or Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo is or has or does.

I opened up a bottle of Pusser's Navy Rum. The cork broke; the bottom part slid down into the rum. Well, I have extra corks. And I suppose that gives it a more Jack Aubrey look, a more c. 1809 look. I really should be in a bar on River Street in Savannah, though, drinking Demerara rum from Guyana with Miss Ginny. She once said she'd elope with me to Savannah--- after all, it's where Mandy Moore got married. She could see herself, she said, after the wedding, in a dive bar on River Street in a white lace 1960s-style wedding minidress. I can see that, too. Miss Ginny has gone skinny-dipping on dawn beaches in Mexique and crawled through Florida salt grass with a joint in her hand. I want to drink Guyana rum with her in Savannah or in a Key West bar after we'd eloped. Just as I want her to take me to Russian bars in Montreal or run down rue Sherbrooke Ouest at midnight, hand-in-hand, laughing.

But I'll never leave here again. I'll never have the money to leave, or anyone to leave for or with. I'll never be in NYC. Or London. Or Vienna. Or Marrakech. Or anywhere this side of the grave.

Pusser's Navy Rum. The official Royal Navy rum once upon a time. I can make grog. Rum, water, sugar, lemon juice--- or lime. I can make grog. But I can't drink while a lovely girl is on the phone flirting and whispering and laughing and making me believe some value.

There's more Baltika in the fridge. I really do like Baltika. I just can't be valuable enough to have anyone call and offer up flirtation and belief. And nothing I can offer up--- books, films, music, Stories ---is as good as anything the girls I Obsess over have. I can add music to my iTunes and my LastFM, I can add movies at Netflix, but I can never have any value to a lovely girl. And value as a lover, as someone to be part of Adventures with--- what else is there? Lucky little lady in the City of Lights... I can sing that here in the lakeside flat, but there's no one to sing to. And I'll never be as good as the girl who does sing in the mirror in Birmingham. I'll never have a life or Stories that are as good as the ones I read at girls' journals. No girl will lie naked on a sofa in a Silver Spring carriage house for me. Let's take that for granted.

I can't even look at my own LastFM tracklist. I'm afraid of what I'll see. My lists don't confer any value. No lovely reads them and wants to know more about me or thinks that I might be worth knowing. No girl looks at my tracklists or Netflix queue and thinks that I might have good Stories or something to offer her. No one thinks that my tracklists might have good Stories implicit. And I'm afraid to find messages or LastFM Shouts that might be Bad News. Just as I can't read any notes or e-mails or comments that might be Bad News.

Any girl on the Nr. 1 train uptown tonight...or drinking in a Russian bar in Montreal...or listening to Ravi Shankar or At The Drive-In or the Doors while getting high and getting out of her skinny jeans in a dorm bed in Birmingham...any girl doing those things...any girl doing those things can only and ever have contempt for me. After all--- I'll never be as good as she is. I can never have their Stories or be part of any Stories ever again.